Why Church? Because We Need Something Holy: Psalm 16: 1-9; John 20: 19-31
If I were to be fully honest with you, I would confess my doubt and crisis of conscience. Don’t panic, please. When I met with Rev. Kyle before he came down to offer the church development seminar, I told him some difficult words. I said that I’ve been here for almost 15 years in total, watched it build and drop, and that I think I have nothing left to offer. I asked him to find a way to transition you all to someone more dynamic, visionary, and with more insight into what to do here. He kind of laughed, rolled his eyes (I’m assuming) and said, “Sure.” And before you panic, I no longer think and feel that way. It was a moment of doubt and disbelief.
We all have those moments, though, don’t we? And it often doesn’t take much to trigger them. A major medical issue, feeling age creeping up on us, financial and housing difficulties, rising prices, seeing some act like nit-wits over their religious beliefs giving the rest of us Christians bad names, and feeling pretty tired and frazzeled by life...all of these things will trigger this part of our heart and mind to cause doubt in practically everything. For as long as there has been belief in humanity, there has also been doubt lurking in the shadows.
Such doubt visited even Jesus’s closest disciples. Jesus was dead. They had watched him be tortured and murdered by the call of religious authorities and with the permission of Rome. He was dead, and they were terrified, traumatized, and filled with despair and doubt themselves. Thomas, one of the disciples who is not present at Jesus’s first appearing, demands to see the wounds, the pierced side, and says without seeing these things, he cannot believe.
For years we’ve criticized Thomas’s lack of faith. He’s been held up as the example of faithless, unbelieving, bad Christian followers for years and earned this very bad reputation as a disciple. I think that’s unfair and misplaced for two reasons: first, he WANTED to see Jesus instead of just flat refusing to believe at all; and second, Jesus did the same for the other disciples when he spoke and showed them the wounds in his hands and side. They didn’t believe without seeing for themselves, so why is it only Thomas who is criticized?
If we ask ourselves why church—why do we still come here, sing hymns, pray, assemble, and share in the blessed sacrament of the table—the basic answer is that we need something holy in our lives. A simple definition of holy is a connection with something miraculous and powerful beyond ourselves. That’s why the disciples followed Jesus in the first place, because they sensed this holy and miraculous aspect in his presence with them. It wasn’t just some inspired teacher they were following—they sensed his power as the Son of God.
When done correctly, church should help people connect with the holy, or God. The Psalm tells us these words, “Keep me safe, O God, for I have come to you for refuge.” Church should be both a place of safety and of refuge. As much suffering, doubt, anguish, and trouble as we see in the world, this should be the place people can come to find a place of refuge from it all and dwell in safety.
In many ways we’ve failed at that. Martin Luther King, Jr. once called Sunday morning at 11 AM the most segregated hour in America, and sadly 60 years later this is still true. For those who may ask questions and disagree with things said in the pulpit, this should still be a safe place of refuge. For those who look differently, love differently, have different heritages and cultures, this should be a place where they feel welcome and connected to God. For the white, middle-class, moderate conservative looking to escape the constant diet of doomsday news and politics, this should be a place of joy and hope. Anything less and we’ve gotten too far in the world to remain separate from the world. The Psalm wraps up with the words that the writer’s heart is happy and his body rests in safety.
Years ago, a pastor said that when he asked the doctor how to lose weight, the doctor said, “Eat less and move more.” So, the pastor applied this to his sermon. The way to grow as a Christian is this: doubt less and have faith more. Someone from the back of the church shouted, “Thanks, Doctor Obvious!” The first step in answering, “Why church?” is acknowledging that it’s hard. Yes, the equation of less doubt and more faith is a simple answer, but it’s only the words that are simple.
Trauma, sadness, loss…all of this, a lifetime of experiences…often drive our sense of doubt in ourselves, in our world, and in God. Every time we see the news unfold of another massacre of school children in gun violence, in the back of our collective mind, there’s this moment of wondering, “If God really exists, how…?” And I think when suffering and pain bring us to the point of doubt, we have to remember that God also knows suffering very, very well, for every time we hurt, God sees the hurt in the creation made in God’s own image, and God hurts too.
Maybe this is why the disciples loved him so dearly. They knew he was holy, but they also saw him hungry, tired, angry, deeply saddened, experience death of a loved one, and even suffer real pain. That’s what makes faith so truly amazing for us. God is not just the high and mighty, but God also got a very intimate understanding of the pain and suffering that humanity experiences.
Thomas, like the rest of the disciples, was in fear, saddened by Jesus’s death, grieving the point of misery, and had no idea where to go from here. But in his worst moments of doubt and fear, he wanted more than anything to see Jesus. His doubt drove him, not to a place of permanent separation from God, but to a place where all he wanted was to see and be present with Jesus for himself—to experience what is holy.
For faith to flourish, we must have the courage to let our doubts drive us to Jesus instead of letting them drive us to the brink of insanity. We must sit back for a moment, surrounded by our faith community, in a place where we can expect to experience God’s holiness, and wait for that blessed presence of Jesus to be with us. If we ask why church, it’s because we need these holy encounters in an otherwise dull and routine life.
A friend of mine, Sam Ogles, is a Christian writer. He had a column this week on conversion where he talked about St. Francis. He wrote that St. Francis was once a great partier, the son of a wealthy merchant. Francis was the life and chief of all things party and pleasure. But one day, in the ruins of a chapel, he hears the voice of Jesus saying to him, “Francis, rebuild my church.” From that day on, he devoted himself to a life of poverty and service, renouncing all his wealth and power in society.
The story goes on to say that one day, St. Francis meets a leper on the road, and he recoils in disgust. This man of God, a saint, one who had taken a vow of poverty and service to the poor let his old ways and doubt creep into the point that he recoils in disgust from those he vowed to help. My friend, Sam, comments that “conversion is as much a matter of renewal as it is initial choice.” As long as faith has existed, humanity has wrestled with doubt.
But doubts should never lead us away from God, instead, they should be a means by which we run to God for assurance and guidance. It is only in those moments that we seek out God’s holiness that we can grow beyond the doubts we face. When a church is at its best, this is what it offers—this experience of God. Doubts will plague us throughout life, but in each moment of vulnerability, we need to remember those reassuring words we are about to sing, “I need no other argument; I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.” So, my friends, rest assured, God’s grace is more than enough.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/6058238554265929